The first post in this series showed that Jeremy Corbyn is seeking a hard Brexit. In spite of his efforts, to date Keir Starmer has been unable to prevent that from within the shadow cabinet. Indeed he has offered gravitas to underpin the fantasies and deceptions of his leader. It is not going to get any better. He should offer the Labour Cabinet one last chance to back the People’s Vote – Labour Remainers in the party are fighting for that as the second post in this series showed. If the Shadow Cabinet do not run with that, he should consider whether to maintain his position in the shadow cabinet or to find his natural home as a leader of the Remain movement. As the third post in this series, London4Europe Committee member Michael Romberg writes an open letter:

You can write your own letter to: keir.starmer.mp@parliament.uk

Dear Keir Starmer

The leading advocates of a hard Brexit are Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson, Theresa May - and Jeremy Corbyn.

You may think that EU immigration has to be cut to win seats in the North. But then Jeremy Corbyn and you have to stop making those speeches where you say that it is wrong to blame immigrants for austerity and bad employers. If as a matter of policy you are going to treat EU immigrants as harmful you have to justify that policy – in the face of all the evidence (click here for a summary and here for a short video). And remember, even in Leave-voting seats most Labour voters voted Remain.

You say that it would be corrosive of political trust for Brexit to be abandoned. That would be true if the Government just chucked it. But it cannot be true of a people’s vote. The people cannot betray themselves. But they can vote differently on Brexit-the-plan once they know what it means than they did on Brexit-the-idea when they were given many conflicting and empty promises.

You should present the shadow cabinet with an ultimatum: come out now – in line with the 2016 Labour Party Conference resolution - for a People’s Vote where each member of the electorate has the chance to cast their ballot on the question: accept the Government’s Brexit terms or Remain in the EU. Labour should put its backing behind the necessary legislation as soon as possible.

Brexit would at the least delay and make all that harder. No-one wishing to have a national project of tackling any of these problems would say “let’s first leave the EU, let’s first spend years of Government energy and time dealing with the fall-out of that decision, let’s cut the resources available to the State”.

It is time for a break. It is time for a man of integrity and courage to lead the way.

Yours sincerely

{when you write, give your full name and street address so that he knows whether you are a constituent. Keir Starmer explicitly seeks the views of non-constituents in connexion with his Brexit role.}

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